Tag: human behaviour

The Next Educational Diversion from our normal human behaviour

In my book, I briefly discussed the topic of quality in the world of innovation and automation.

My view was that through the quality revolution in the US and Japan and then other parts of the world, logically back then, someone visualizing the year 2021 might have assumed a world where everyone has quality integrated into their lives. From punctuality to cleanliness, to meeting deadlines and creating high quality products efficiently, and designing efficient processes and having employees adhere to them.

However, general human behaviour and smartphones really did a number on that possibility. Now, a lot of us tend to waste a lot of time mindlessly going down rabbit holes on the web. And how many of us are punctual? We also buy things we don’t need, and spend money we don’t have yet. And our general sense of quality isn’t much to aspire to.

So, what was the upside of the quality revolution, you might ask?
I think it was more of an educational diversion from our normal human behaviour so that we could then get our machines to be efficient instead of us.

And right now, I see something similar happening on the tech development front.

I recently got familiar with the project management software Jira. And user stories. And all I can think is, it isn’t going to be long before AI will handle a good part of all tech development. And we humans would simply have to communicate our tech requirements in a very simple manner to a system that will build it for us.

Tony Stark: Paint it.
Jarvis : Commencing automated assembly. Estimated completion time is five hours.

Imagine something similar with the next website or app you want to build in the coming years.

Changing User Behaviour

Changing User Behaviour

I am currently reading the book Hooked, and happened to read something very important. I shared the excerpt with a design thinking group I am administrator of. The snippet read:

John Gourville, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, stipulates that “many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally overvalue the new.”

Nir Eyal

A recent member of the group asked if I could share examples of this.

I said any attempt by a company to break a customers habit toward a competitors product/service, is an example.

This concept needs to be looked at in context of a larger concept of value.

The book says that a product/service attempting to break an existing customer habit must offer 9-times more value than what the customer currently derives from something existing that he/she is habituated with.

One of my favourite examples, that I used in my book, is about keyboards. Interestingly, I found the same example cited in Hooked. This is about the QWERTY keyboard almost all of us are hugely familiar with. And the example of another product that attempted to replace it.
The QWERTY is a very old design. Early 1870s to be exact!

Along the way, a psychologist invented a keyboard called the Dvorak keyboard. After studying usage, he rearranged keys on his keyboard to increase typing speed. What was different, was that the most frequently used keys were put closer together and in the center. A user would spend less time moving to frequently used keys, which were now closer together. Thus Dvorak rightly claimed a significant improvement in typing speeds for anyone who used this new keyboard.

Want something that helps us improve our typing speed?
Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Learning to use a differently-arranged device should not be too tough for humans from an ability point of view. Surprisingly, the Dvorak keyboard never really took off.

The Dvorak keyboard: image source

Look at the Dvorak keyboard in context of the above 9x benefit. Perhaps the benefit it offered was not high enough for users to leave an old habit (Qwerty). And learn a new one.

To wrap it up… The new guys are like Dr. Dvorak and team. They assume a better product that needs users to do things differently will be an instant success. What they don’t realize, is that users need to see a disproportionately high benefit first. It takes a hugely great product solving a pressing problem, to make customers learn a new way to do something. Little else incentivizes them enough. And in context of more recent startups, it takes astronomical amounts in funding to tempt users to change a behaviour. And that too with no guarantee they will still be around when the offers and freebies stop.

If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.

And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.

Built In Your Image

Built In Your Image

We encourage people to be objective, and not to be emotionally imbalanced. We even look down on the rare outburst by family or friends. Right?

And there’s a reason for it. Nobody likes someone who is always cranky. However, I wonder if even the rare outbursts or breakdowns by people we know, are really that bad.

For instance, people from smaller towns sometimes tend to be more attuned to their emotional side (by emotional, I don’t mean emotionally imbalanced, but rather, let’s say, ‘more human’ or warm, and also perhaps more easily offended) compared to those living in metros who, given the fast-paced life, often tend to be more disconnected and aloof to most things. Only, I don’t know if the metro way is the absolute right way, or the small town way, wrong.

Attending a lecture by Prof. Yuval Noah Harari seemed to at least slightly reinforce the thought, unless I missed some point.

Prof. Harari spoke of how organisations are and will continue to enhance human capability. And that while that would grow existing or new abilities in us, how it might shrink our emotional side, which in turn could be more detrimental than good. That seemed to explain the fast-paced pursuit in larger cities and our resulting disposition.

So have we, over the decades, even without biotechnology to enhance us, been gradually pushing ourselves to be more analytical at the risk of being cold and indifferent, while simultaneously punishing by isolating those who tend to be more emotional and arguably in turn, ‘more human’?

So while outbursts like road rage are never good, I am sure there are sufficient and more people out there, students, employees and others who are silently fighting their own battles, and each time they resist an outburst or an expression of their thoughts, and instead bottle it up, they perhaps end up doing more damage to themselves than good.

That is one part of the problem.

The other, more concerning part, given the above dilemma of whether we should allow people the occasional outburst without making it look like a forbidden crime, or not; is the fact that we know so little about human behaviour!

Yet we somehow seem to be alright with artificial intelligence being allowed to learn from us. With the possibility that someday there might be AI systems guiding nations about defensive or offensive actions. About how people are or might be, about how situations might pan out, and allowing man to indulge in his affinity for preemptive action.

It might also cause unstoppable actions on the part of AI. Unless we somehow feel optimistic that AI might in fact, help humans understand ourselves and each other better someday.

Because otherwise, it’ll just be like that phrase that went around during the early days of the computer… Garbage in..garbage out.

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If innovation, strategy, problem-solving, customer experience or ideation are areas of interest, you might enjoy reading my book, ‘Design the Future‘.
Ebook available on Amazon and Kobo, and paperbacks across leading online bookstores including Amazon, Flipkart & Infibeam.
If you do buy the book, would appreciate a review on Amazon once you’ve read it.

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Upbringing

Upbringing

Here’s a thought regarding upbringing. Views welcome; and especially so if you have kids and your parents either stay with you, or you visit each other often.

You know how curious for information kids are. And parents often ask them to say or sing something they have learnt, in front of family or in the presence of guests? As a parent, try to think of the reason why you do this.

“What is your intent behind requesting your kid to say or sing something in front of the family and/or guests?”

Is it more for amusement (and possibly family bonding) or to show-off your child’ progress, or something else?

And in case it is for ‘something else’, what is that something?

Similarly, ask your parents the same questions. Especially if your parents aren’t all that literate (or if you have grandparents, ask them as well).

What’s the thought/ point behind this?

Back in the day, grandparents or parents didn’t always have access to the best of education. In such instances, they would often request their kid to say something they had learnt. Especially in the presence of visiting family or friends. Is it possible that was less for amusement, and more as a matter of pride or accomplishment?

Nowadays parents have obviously received a good education (in most cases). They usually know know more than their kid does (be it something as basic as English, etc.). In such cases, is requesting your kid to say something in the presence of others more for amusement, and less out of pride or humility that the elders might have felt?

How does this matter?

Is it possible that in the past, those kids would sense the the humility and pride, and in present times, would sense the amusement? And would the reactions of kids be different given what they sense? And does that influence their actions? For instance, would that feeling of humility or pride they saw in their elders push them to strive harder? And in more recent times, do kids see themselves as being entertainment for elders, and therefore sometimes tend to strive to please or entertain instead?

While earlier generations were overly concerned about “what society will think” regarding different aspects of their professional and personal lives, are the current and younger generations very different? Aren’t the younger generations also overly dependent on social acknowledgement, attention and approval, even though it might be for contexts different from those of earlier generations?

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My book on design thinking titled ‘Design the Future‘ is out. If innovation, design thinking, problem-solving, human behaviour or ideation are areas of interest, am sure you will enjoy this book.
You can order your paperback copy via Amazon, Flipkart & Infibeam.
Would be great if you could leave a review on Amazon once you’ve read the book.

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Look forward to your views. And if you liked this post, do follow or subscribe to my blog (top right of the page) for similar topics that encourage reflection and discussion. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and on Twitter.

The Illusion of Ratings and Feedback

The Illusion of Ratings and Feedback
Life in present times has become an increasingly rapid process of experiences and feedback. Businesses are always asking us to rate the services or experiences they offer. And often, they feel inclined to “reward” us for it. While no one’s complaining about the free stuff or great discounts, are we losing perspective of what’s genuinely good? Because, while the feedback is certainly far more in quantity, it can’t be as clean in quality.
Why, you ask?
For starters, the moment you bribe (yes, a strong but apt word) someone for a feedback or to leave a rating or review, you’re automatically influencing the purity of the feedback, rating or review. Same goes for a 10% discount for simply “checking into” a restaurant.
Everything from a review to get the free ‘dry fruit pickle’ or a discount on the food bill, establishments are literally paying to distort their own reality of their business.
A few years ago, a friend of mine started a business, and reached out to friends on Facebook to like their business page. I was well past the years when I’d actually ask people to convince me (or at the least, fill the ‘About’ section on the page), before asking people to simply like the page. So, while I liked the page and got on with my work, some months later, seeing the 800+ likes, I asked how business was. There was none. Even though am quite sure a lot of common friends might have had a need for the products being offered. What happened, was that the Facebook page (in herd mentality), gave them a level of instant gratification, while distracting them from the core. Is, or how can I make my offerings increasingly relevant?
Recently, an entrepreneur found me online and requested a meeting to help their business turn profitable and grow faster. They had exceptional social media following and activity, which of course I didn’t take at face value. But what came next from the entrepreneur was even more disappointing. That while a lot of the followers were fake, when visiting any business page, seeing a good following gives him a sense of trust and confidence too. That justified it.
Let’s forget fake following and likes for a moment. Besides, I’ve already written a fair bit about them years ago. But consider just the fact of a business incentivizing a feedback or review that should ideally be happening without influence. Each time we do that, we willingly distort our sense of the pulse of our business.
Last month, I had dinner at one of the Taj restaurants with relatives. While the starters and main course were exceptional, the service was aloof, and one dessert was a disaster. On another occasion, when at a relatives place, I ordered butter chicken from the Butter Chicken Factory, a nearby joint. The butter chicken was terrible! I wrote reviews about the Taj dinner and the butter chicken place on Zomato (neither ratings were too terrible). Both establishments responded. The Taj staff thanked me, saying they would incorporate the inputs. And that they looked forward to having me there again soon. The city head of the Butter Chicken Factory called to understand what in my opinion, they had gotten wrong about the taste. As I was busy, he called at a time I said I’d be free, and tried to understand. He had inputs of his own to reason out, like the very different taste of the dish in northern India and other places, and how theirs  was influenced more by a certain part of the country. It was a good dialogue, with me recommending they try out the dish at another old joint which I knew, was good. This felt like a far, far more human and involved business, as opposed to a template perhaps pasted by the Taj folk.
Now imagine, if the Taj people had offered me a 10% discount on my next visit. But the service remained unchanged and the same dessert was still on the menu, and still a dess-aster! Perhaps my reaction would have been milder, as I would have been indebted to the 10% discount. And the restaurant wouldn’t have learnt anything from the feedback.
And these are instances that are still the more evident, at least to most of us. There are so many where one aspect of the business could cause us to completely write off another aspect of it. Or an offer could skew our perception of what we’ve just experienced, be it food, an experience, an electronic product, anything.
A startup might justify the need to influence reviews to obtain a minimum critical mass to even survive. But in doing so, do businesses ignore real feedback and let performance slack? Thanks to early illusionary success, do they risk missing the growth bus?

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